Fair enough comments, Admin, and I am not suggesting I would have more of a clue than industry participants. However, there are a couple of other points perhaps worth considering: 1. Wine is a heavily regulated and taxed industry. It makes sense to get together to seek to limit additional taxes on the product (just think of the absurd WET); 2. Given the above, I doubt very few industries ever seek to self-regulate without pressure from lobby groups, governments, etc (eg. when the GST came in, taxes on wine products would have actually fallen, resulting in falling prices. The health industry lobby groups fought to ensure that no price of alcohol could ever fall, hence the introduction of WET); 3. The coffee industry, as far as I am aware, is still very fragmented with too many individual participants. It is still very much sold on the person rather than the product. My uneducated view is that this all leads to ego fuelled head bashing. The same occurs in many industries like that....just look at the funds management industry! P
